The anchor was up, and the ship was away. Mary stood up, steadying herself by the mast, and stretched out her arms, imploring the flying vessel to stay its course, by that mute action, while the tears streamed down her cheeks. The men caught up their oars, and hoisted them in the air, and shouted to arrest attention. They were seen by the men aboard the larger craft; but they were too busy with all the confusion prevalent in an outward-bound vessel to pay much attention. There were coils of ropes and seamen's chests to be stumbled over at every turn; there were animals, not properly secured, roaming bewildered about the deck, adding their pitiful lowings and bleatings to the aggregate of noises. There were carcases not cut up, looking like corpses of sheep and pigs rather than like mutton and pork; there were sailors running here and there and everywhere, having had no time to fall into method, and with their minds divided between thoughts of the land and the people they had left, and t h e present duties on boar ship; while the captain strove hard to procure some kind of order by hasty commands given, in a loud, impatient voice, to right and left, starboard and larboard, cabin and steerage. As he paced the deck with a chafed step, vexed at one or two little mistakes on the art of the mate, and suffering himself from the pain of separation from wife and children, but showing his suffering only by his outward irritation, he heard a hail from the shabby little river boat that was striving to overtake his winged ship. For the men fearing that, as the ship was now fairly over the bar, they should only increase the distance between them, and being now within shouting range, had asked of Mary her more particular desire. Her throat was dry, all musical sound had gone out of her voice; but in a loud, harsh whisper she told the men her errand of life and death, and they hailed the ship. "We're come for one William Wilson, who is wanted to prove an alibi in Liverpool Assize Court to-morrow. James Wilson is to be tried for a murder done on Thursday night when he was with William Wilson. Any thing more, missus?" asked the boatman of Mary, in a lower voice, and taking his hands down from his mouth. "Say I'm Mary Barton. Oh, the ship is going on! Oh, for the love of Heaven, ask them to stop." The boatman was angry at the little regard paid to his summons, and called out again; repeating the message with the name of the young woman who sent it, and interlarding it with sailors' oaths. The ship flew along--away,--the boat struggled after. They could see the captain take his speaking-trumpet. And oh! and alas! they heard his words. He swore a dreadful oath; he called Mary a disgraceful name; and he said he would not stop his ship for any one, nor could he part with a single hand, whoever swung for it. The words came in unpitying clearness with their trumpet-sound. Mary sat down looking like one who prays in the death agony. For her eyes were turned up to that Heaven, where mercy dwelleth, while her blue lips quivered, though no sound came. Then she bowed her head and hid it in her hands. "Hark! yon sailor hails us." She looked up. And her heart stopped its beating to listen. William Wilson stood as near the stern of the vessel as he could get; and unable to obtain the trumpet from the angry captain, made a tube of his own hands. "So help me God, Mary Barton, I'll come back in the pilot-boat, time enough to save the life of the innocent." "What does he say?" asked Mary, wildly, as the voice died away in the increasing distance, while the boatmen cheered, in their kindled sympathy with their passenger. "What does he say?" repeated she. "Tell me. I could not hear." She had heard with her ears, but her brain refused to recognise the sense. They repeated his speech, all three speaking at once, with many comments; while Mary looked at them and then at the vessel far away. "I don't rightly know about it," said she, sorrowfully. "What is the pilot-boat?" They told her, and she gathered the meaning out of the sailors' slang which enveloped it. There was a hope still, although so slight an faint. "How far does the pilot go with the ship?" To different distances they said. Some pilots would go as far as Holyhead for the chance of the homeward bound vessels; others only took the ships over the Banks. Some captains were more cautious than others, and the pilots had different ways. The wind was against the homeward-bound vessels, so perhaps the pilot aboard the John Cropper would not care to go far out. "How soon would he come back?" There were three boatmen, and three varying from twelve hours to two days.
Nay, the man who gave his vote for the longest time, on having his judgment disputed, grew stubborn, and doubled the time, and thought it might be the end of the week before the pilot-boat came home. They began disputing, and urging reasons; and Mary tried to understand them; but independently of their nautical language, a veil seemed drawn over her mind, and she had no clear perception of anything that passed.
